April 20, 2006
A pheasant surprise
On my way back to catch the ferry home yesterday, driving through the wilds of the east side, I came across a most unexpected and out-of-place sight for Shetland, a plumptious male Pheasant. Obviously I accelerated hard at it in a blaze of mouth-watering saliva as soon as the initial shock wore off, but alas the wily gamebird managed to quirm through a gap in the roadside fence to safety in the park beyond.
Well, not quite. What really happened was me screeching to a halt, trying to get a photo of this extreme (-ly feral) Shetland rarity before it scarpered, and nobody believed me. Besides, it was limping rather badly, so running it over wouldn't have been terribly sporting.
Then, bugger me backwards with a galliforme if another 2 females didn't emerge from the long grass to join it. And then... yet another male erupted out of the grass and flew off in a wild panic doing that chug-chug alarm call I associate with trespassing while out birding in private woodland in the south of England, rather than minding my own business on the public highway in Shetland.
4 Pheasants. My, my. Only a few days ago I was truly gripped by a report on MP's website of 1 survivor from a release a couple of years ago; and here I was quadrupling that record. Be still my beating heart. I can't imagine finding a BB rarity could be as exciting as this. So many fencehoppers in one week... not that I include the merganser in that tally. Oh no.
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Come back soon!
Posted by Stercorarius at April 20, 2006 01:54 PM